A 40 percent fall in the Nasdaq Stock Market was associated
with an approximate 36 percent increase in heart attacks in one
study, Jack Scannell and fellow analysts at Bernstein in London
wrote in a “Halloween Special” report today.

Another study showed that a 5 percent move in the Shanghai
Composite Index increased the risk among Shanghai residents by
about 17 percent, Scannell said. The findings are comparable to
the danger of high-risk heart patients not taking cholesterol-lowering drugs, he said.

In both cases, “it is likely that the excess risk would be
concentrated” among investors, he said.

A study published this year in the European Heart Journal
showed that heart disease deaths in Shanghai correlated with the
size of daily swings in the Shanghai index, Scannell wrote. A
study from Duke University published in the Journal of the
American College of Cardiology last year identified a similar
pattern in the U.S., where the rolling-average rate of heart
attacks was inversely linked with the level of the Nasdaq,
Scannell wrote.

“The effects on daily cardiac risk of large market moves
are as big or bigger than the cardiac drugs that have been
exciting analysts in the last few years,” Scannell said in an
interview.

Elderly Savers

The risk rates reported in both the Shanghai and the Duke
studies, according to a statistical measure called a hazard
ratio, compare with that of AstraZeneca Plc’s bestselling
Crestor cholesterol pill in a 2008 study comparing the drug to a
placebo, Bernstein said.

The positive results of the Crestor trial, dubbed Jupiter,
helped boost the drug’s sales from about $3.6 billion in 2008 to
about $5.7 billion last year.

“It is not clear how the risk varies between retail
investors and institutional investors,” Scannell wrote in an e-mail. “No matter how stressful investment professionals find
the job, it may well be the actual elderly savers and pensioners
-- the ones at high cardiovascular risk -- who really suffer
when markets are volatile.”

“A very good bit of advice: If you are a retail investor,
don’t check the value of your portfolio too often,” he wrote.